I often defend Desmond’s role in the early Assassin’s Creed games, because I see the value the give to the franchise. Ultimately, I still hold fast to that.
But Assassin’s Creed: Revelations really wants to test me!
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
As I said before, I strongly suspect that these segments were added to the same explicitly because someone on the dev team played Portal 2 and wanted to do a riff on those games. I have no proof of my accusation, but in heart I know it to be true. And I sincerely, deeply, profoundly wish that their idea had been vetoed at any point before it went into production.
There’s no way of getting around it. The central mechanic is so overpowered that the game has to go out of its way to keep the player from using it if they want to present even a minor challenge, and even then there’s nothing particularly difficult about anything that we’re doing. My brain would be dead for most of these segments were it not for my stream chat talking with me while I was doing them.
Even worse, these terrible gameplay sections are meant to metaphorically represent the memories that Desmond is monologue about, but neither the metaphor nor that monologue are worth it. Nolan North’s performance is flat and dull, devoid of any emotional content. And the script he’s given seemingly contradicts things that were canon in the previous games.
Beyond the act of checking off the box that say “Complete the Desmond memories”, there’s no reason to go through this. It’s a completely pointless experience that arguably makes the main character of this franchise look worse and less compelling. We called it “character assassination” during the stream, and though it was a joke it’s also true.
Leave a Reply